(This is a sarcastic piece meant to speak to everyone who’s ever sat in an AA meeting and really connected to a personal story about the crazy thinking alcoholics experience. Sometimes those connections help us feel understood and also give us a mirror to see how bananas our lives have become. I remember nodding along to someone in a women’s meeting talking about her husband finding a large stash of empties in a laundry hamper and realizing I had a problem.)

Glass is your enemy. You want to buy liquor in smaller plastic bottles that are easy to hide and silent when you dispose of them.

Don’t buy alcohol in the grocery store. Your sponsor could be there, from that time you tried to get sober. Hit up the same liquor store every time, and don’t let the genuinely concerned owner stare you down.

You need gum. And mouthwash. And body spray. If you’re drinking in your room and you have a roommate, invest in scented candles. Open the window.

Change up your hiding places. Obvious ones are bottles in boots or behind things in the bathroom. Drink when everyone else is asleep, and pull alcohol from smarter, more difficult to reach hiding spots.

Learn to recognize the feeling you get before you take the drink that makes you vomit. It’s a lot easier to cover up the smell of drinking than it is to cover up the smell of throwing up.